“Is she dead?”
“No; but they’re in dreadful trouble over to that house. Oh, son! if you could see that dear angel lying there so beautiful on the bed, and the room so quiet, and the poor creature’s pa and ma taking on so, and she not knowing it! It’s a dreadful sight! It’s strange, it is!”
“But is she no better, mother? Won’t she recover?”
“No hope of such a thing. I wanted to go back to-night to sit there in the room with her, but they said I’d tire out, and maybe they’d have to call on me again; and so I must rest to-night.”
“But do you feel so very tired?”
“No; I could sit there just as well as sleep here. I’m so anxious. I’ll have time enough to rest when I can’t do nothing for them, poor things!”
“Oh, do go then! Has she been in her right mind to-day?”
“Not a minute. But it’s strange though, how her thoughts has kept on to one thing the whole time. I wish you could see her arm! It’s dreadful inflamed; and it’s stained with something like ink, and odd enough, just in the shape of a cross. It couldn’t be no supernatural work, George. I told you her gold cross was lost.”
“And does her arm pain her?”
“Not that, I guess. But it’s all about having her hope amputated, and then she’ll lift her arm, as if she couldn’t do it hardly, and talk about the cross being heavy to bear. And then she cries about the Angel of Wrath, and says he’s coming—and whispers, and takes on the queerest you ever see. Oh, it would be dreadful if she wasn’t so lovely, and so angel-like, when she talks about these horrid things!”